Mandy and the Tentacle Monster: Chapter 12

I hear them in the dining room long before I turn the corner. I am eager to talk with Tiny, but at the same time, I am worried. Even though I did not recognize her sentience and treated her as a pet, I am fond of her. I hope she sees me as a friend, but how could she? She may be angry with me and yell at me. She may not even wish to speak with me. I slow my progress. I should wait and try to speak with her tomorrow.

I listen and hear her chirpy Human-speak. She sounds relaxed. She is telling Second about different utensils humans make use of because they must compensate for their woeful lack of claws. Second chuffs in amusement.

“It is a stick with claws on the end? The claws grab the noodles?” He asks in disbelief. That does sound ridiculous.

“Ugh. You make it sound so dumb,” Tiny chirps. “They aren’t claws, they’re tines. Where I’m from it’s considered rude to just grab noodles with your claws or fingers.”

“I promise we can make a food scooper for you soon, little human. For now, allow me to assist you.” Second sounds so solicitous and completely unlike his usual obnoxious demeanor. How will he “assist” her? Is he encouraging her to eat from his claw? I hurry into the dining area.

“Smallest!” Second greets me, “You are arrived! Look, Tiny has a translation device. Now that our matrix has updated with her Earth-speak, we can converse with her,” He nudges Tiny with one tentacle arm, “Go ahead, small one, say something. Greet Smallest.”

“Hi.” Tiny chirps waving a little hand at me in greeting and smiling. She does not seem to harbor any ill will towards me.

“Greetings, Tiny.” I nod, “I am happy to communicate with you.”

At the food generator, I order up my fushweed noodles shaped into tiny strips and served in a thin broth.

“Can you get me a bowl of that too?” Tiny asks from her seat at the table.

“Of course.” I will get it for her, but I don’t look forward to the mess she is going to make trying to eat it.

Setting the bowl in front of her, I take the space next to her out of habit. I always sit next to her. After I’m settled though, it occurs to me that I should have asked before sitting next to her. Is that not proper manners, to ask “May I sit near you?” I have never had to worry about manners around Tiny before.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see her poke one of her digits into the broth. She must see my shudder because she rolls her eyes around, in what appears to be a gesture of exasperation.

“Fine!” She exclaims throwing up her hands, “You can feed me.”

“It’s not necessary.” I protest.

“Go ahead.” She has folded her arms over her chest, “It’s the last time because, Ken says we can print some forks and spoons up tonight.”

I ball up a small bite of noodles for her and deliver it right into her mouth, then ask, “Ken?” This sound is not so difficult to make, but it is odd.

“Yes!” Second leans around Tiny, smiling and coloring, “That is the designation Tiny gave me. Is it not delightful? She has given me two designations!”

I am tingling with jealousy. Why does Second have two unique designations, but Tiny has not assigned one to me? I wind up another ball of noodles and feed it to Tiny.

“In the same way we designated her Tiny because we did not communicate, she designated First as ‘Lu.’” He sounds and looks ridiculous pronouncing that designation, “And she designated you Seven.”

“Seven?” I have deposited another bite in Tiny’s mouth, so she cannot answer me.

“Yes, Seven. I thought it odd too. There are only four of us on this ship after all. Tiny says it is some kind of reference to human entertainment videos.” He shrugs all his tentacle arms and maintains a luminous color of good humor.

Tiny nods her head in affirmation as she chews more noodles. I trill a purr and reach out and pet her head. I comb her mane with my other hand that is not occupied feeding her noodles. As I comb through her mane a second time I notice she has stopped chewing and her whole body has stilled. Both she and Ken are staring at me and I snatch my hands away from her.

“Apologies, Tiny.” I look down and see that my epidermis has a darkened and taken on green undertone. I have never felt more self-conscious, “I do not-“ I huff once, not knowing how to excuse my presumption, “I will not-“

“It’s oh-Khay Seven.” Tiny touches her hand to my shoulder in a soothing gesture, “I know that you’re used to treating me like a pet. I don’t mind you touching my hair.”

She cannot mean this. She is trying to make me comfortable. And after I was so rude to her.

“It is not necessary, Tiny. I will remember from now on that you are a sentient person and not a pet,” I inform her with finality, moving one space over to give her room as I would any other person.

She tilts her head and peers at me. It is remarkable how well she conveys her emotions. Hampered as she is with no tentacles or tail and limited variation of color. Now, for instance, I can tell that she is worried by the way her brow fuzz has scrunched together. And I can tell she is thoughtful by the way she has tilted her head and pursed her plump little lips together.

She comes to some decision because she straightens up and says, “Please do remember that I’m sentient. But I don’t mind being petted or other casual touches. I’m a touchee-feelee sort of person and no matter what else has changed, you are my friend,” She gestures to the empty spot next to her, the one I vacated, and looks at me expectantly.

I move next to her again and she grabs my hand and places it back on her mane. Then she smiles at me, baring her meager, blunted teeth.

I cannot stop myself from rumbling the strongest purr I have ever purred. I comb and pet her as I feed her dinner and a deep well of contentment starts bubbling up in me. I am so very glad that Tiny considers me her friend and is not angry with me over her treatment thus far. I am going to be the very best friend I can to her from now on.

I glance at Ken and he is staring at us with his mouth agape, his tentacle arms scrunched.

He abruptly resumes eating his food without saying anything about it.

I wait until Tiny has finished her noodles to ask her about the Crimbulonian credits.

“I found these in one of the crates. I emptied a crate full of fabric, and there was a kind of drawer that popped up from the bottom when I stepped on it. It was packed full of these coins.” she says with a shrug of her shoulder. “I tried to show them to you, but you just pet my head and then scooped me up and carried me off without even looking.”

I glance at “Ken” then look toward “Lu” who had entered the dining room as Tiny was explaining. I am waiting for one or the other to speak up and tell her that she cannot keep a fortune sewn into her dancing garment. Nobody says anything.

“So, are they valuable or something? I had thought they must be for accessorizing since they were packed with clothes and fabric…” she trails off.

“They are very valuable,” Ken informs her, “Those crates were part of the Crastouve Prime deal. Do you recall Smallest-“

“Seven,” I interrupt him to correct.

He nods in acquiescence, “Seven, do you recall that deal? When we traded for those ips? But the ips were part of a package deal where we had to buy the entire lot?”

“Yes,” says Lu, “It was the orbiting storage vessel of some monarch’s aged relative.”

“His Emperial Majesty, King Sptuter of Harpotolon,” I supply in a mocking tone. These silly monarchs with their over-complicated designations are hilarious and annoying in turns.

“Long may he reign!” Ken adds in mock seriousness. We all do the jerky little bow we were thought by the royal vizier when we dealt with that obnoxious little planet. Then we are huffing in good humor while Tiny smirks at us.

“So you had to buy a whole storage unit full of useless stuff just to get ahold of— what was it again? Ifs?”

“Ips,” Ken helpfully explains, “Infinate Power Sources. Thats just what they are called, they are not actually infinate.”

Tiny nods in understanding, “Alright, so to get the batteries, you had to take all those crates?” Ken dips his chin and bounces two of his tentacles in agreement. “So why didn’t you just trash all those crates you don’t want? Can’t you like, shoot them into a star or something?”

“That would be extremely insulting to his majesty,” Lu tells her, “If he ever found out that we had treated what he considered valuable trade items as trash, he would never trade with us again.”

“We would be barred from their system.” Ken adds.

“That too.” Lu agrees.

Tiny had been doing us a service by rifling through those crates and making use of what she could. We had resigned ourselves to storing them indefinitely. Those ips were long gone with a previous trade deal.

“So, do we need to return these coins to his majesty? If they’re so valuable, they must have been sold with all that stuff by mistake.” Tiny asks with a naive sweetness. She would just return this fortune in credits that his majesty doesn’t even know about.

“I do not think that is necessary.” Ken advises, “The owner of those crates obviously didn’t want Sptuter to have the credits. They were hidden away.”

Lu adds, “I agree with Second.”

“Ken,” he is immediately corrected by Ken.

Lu nods and agrees, “Ken.”

“I guess a policy of ‘Finders Keepers’ works just as well,” Tiny agrees sagely with a nod. And it is indisputable that she is the ‘finder’ as well as ‘keeper’ in this situation.

And just like that with no argument from any of us, our human becomes the wealthiest member of our crew.